Quick editor's note! I mentioned that I'd link to the email interviews I had in the video separately in the description, but I haven't found a good way of doing that yet - will update the description and this comment once I find a method of linking to them in due course!
I think it's really neat to sit through a very diligently scripted, fully serious essay like this about a specialized topic, especially if it's one I don't really know a lot about. One might imagine that some essayists go for a sort of universalist approach where they try to tie things all together and put on airs of their topic having some special takeway or philosophical life lesson that lends a greater significance or deeper meaning to whatever it is they're essaying about, but here it's just a look at a particularly pivotal historical period of J-Core, without trying to overreach on meaning or interest, and that confidence in the material engrossed me in the topic at hand, without having to resort to some title like The Best JAPANESE Music Genre You've NEVER Heard Of with a thumbnail caption of "How Did This Happen?" and an arrow pointing to a guy's head circled in red. So it was a good time. I'm not an expert or anything so I can only give dumbfounded hatchling remarks like that, but it was pretty easy to follow along thanks to the full closed captions and choice background footage. see i was going to say the old live show footage actually looks pretty good for the time period compared to eg. arcade footage of GGXXAC but then the clip at 50:50 played and i started laughing those individual pixel blocks were moving like madoka witches feeling smart as hell for listening to some guy called novalaxia's j-core recommendations months ahead of this video when i manage to recognize the cover of hardcore syndrome 2
Good job on being the first one on gathering this much information about the J-Core of old. It's difficult on getting accurate information from the J-Core history, but with the limited sources you did a pretty good job. There are some gaps and misconceptions on some parts (talking as someone that was there with the word J-Core on day one), but the majority is solid and legit. My community and I enjoyed the video while watching during my livestream, so thank you for being the first westerner that collected this much information into one video!
I appreciate the feedback on this! I will confess that there were some sections that would have absolutely benefitted from some more considerable digging, but I was unfortunately struggling to find leads that I was confident were still around by this point (I was honestly quite surprised Plasmadancer's email still worked!) thank you for watching! hopefully it wasn't too much of a chore clearing up things I got wrong, haha
Fantastic work - I really wasn't thinking the project would be in video form, but this is extremely well put together. Even if I'm biased, it's great to see freeform getting a bigger than expected mention. Congrats on the final piece (for now?), and I enjoyed dusting off some memories to contribute!
You did an amazing job with this video!!! I've been into this scene for just over four years now, and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with having to dig around for information on older releases and such. So, it really makes me really happy that you created a video covering this. I hope you can explore even earlier aspects of the hardcore scene in the future, like Hyper Rich or サイケアウツ, just to name a few. Those areas have been pretty undocumented unless you dig really deep.
As someone who's been into J-Core for a long time, I still feel like I've only touched the surface of the scene. Really wonderful job on the analysis. It was very informative ^^ Also really appreciate you going all the way to do interviews too! Will be looking forward to seeing it.
Amazing video essay on J-Core. Did not expect to see a video essay being made on J-Core to be honest and very well researched. There's a couple things that people like Neodash, SpeedBeatz and myself could have offered different perspectives or insights on, and it might have helped the overall essay on clearing up some minor details. For example, there was information of Double Dutch available way before 2015 that me and others dug up at the time. The original 128 kbps quality rip that was available online was as early as 2005 if I remember correctly, and the discovery of Double Dutch information like the Yonderdome infosheet was scanned in by me around 2010 haha. We had a good grasp on the information pretty early of releases like Double Dutch and other more obscure releases by other labels from talking with the artists themselves. But this kind of information is not widely known. Especially since proper, more permanent forms of documentation weren't really a thing until later and it was mostly just stored in the collective minds (and hard drives) of the people in the scenes. We did often cite sources in places like Discogs release history pages. You mentioned there's not a lot of information on the J-Core scene, but I'm here to tell you that there definitely is a lot to be found. While it is a fleeting and underground scene, there's many of us working to document this awesome scene, both on Discogs as well as other sources, like the j-core-adjacent Ian's Nerdcore Encyclopedia or obscure corners of the Internet Archive. But you have to know where to look or who to ask haha. I really appreciate you compiling all of this into a well-produced essay like this. Also, it seems like you've fallen victim to the prank of some troll when showcasing the Double Dutch tracks haha. These were seemingly intentionally compressed multiple times over and transcoded to flac in order to troll a notorious online beggar who harassed people online. I don't know who did it, but the 128 kbps rip sounds much clearer in comparison.
thank you for this in-depth comment on things! I definitely would have liked to have reached out for comment from figures like yourself and Neodash, but I admittedly didn't know how to get in contact knowing how a lot of websites are pretty bad for that exact purpose these days, and I wager RUclips comments might not have been the easiest way of starting a correspondence, haha I did often use the Internet Archive for a few pieces of info here and there, but the timing was... unfortunate, considering what happened prior to this video going live! I nonetheless appreciate such an in-depth clarification on many things, it's great to have someone able to highlight these details!
As a relative outsider to more hardcore music scenes and circles I thought this video was genuinely so informative and fun! It's given me a lot to listen to too.
happy to hear you found it informative! many find this area of hardcore a bit overwhelming to dive into, but there's definitely something there for everyone if you have any specific tastes ^^
18:46 Well! Thank you for covering my favorite part of the scene! (And interviewing the one with the best English!) Personally I feel it's an exaggeration to say freeform influenced J-Core as a whole, especially with Codex alienating so many fans before episode 5. Then again, I never specifically compared it to other influences. Tano*C's pre-2015 releases are still amazing to me, especially the early ones, so I'll definitely come back to this!
if you do another video like this, it would be cool if you talked about the nerdcore techno as a whole, its really rich due to its diversity and there are labels that are really rare!!!
Really enjoyed the vid! I especially liked the analysis on Double Dutch, it's an album I haven't listened to before and I liked reading your comments on the individual songs!
I don't really like hardcore music. That, I've known; but after sitting my ass down to this video, I finally have an explanation why. Hardcore and J-core can be loud, jarring, repetitive, and alyrical. At times, it's more noise than signal, occasionally sound with barebone substance. Once in a while a verse or even an entire song will appeal to me, but then I'll experience a long stretch of hardcore tracks I don't like for reasons I would expect other people to agree with. But I try my best not to take this to mean that hardcore per se is boring or uninspired. Rather, listening to samples of HARDCORE TANO*C and Double Dutch that I didn't like, all while digesting your historical narrative of the genre, its evolution, and its artists-real, living, breathing humans with eyes, ears, brains, only a taste in music I couldn't comprehend-I think I finally kind of got it. These genres of music have historically never catered to the standard tenets of musical taste. Whatever the intent was of these DJs who sat down and created these songs, the end results are songs that clearly operate for a different reason than appealing to as many people as possible, unlike other music of that and even the current time period. Hardcore songs don't really feel like they're trying to invoke emotion or tell a story. They feel like they were created purely to create music in relation to an existing field, like an experiment, or a drill meant to deepen a niche. From what I got in this video, it took J-core artists a long time to even consider bringing in wider cultural influences like otaku or international cultures. So yeah! Good work conveying to me, world-renowned #1 hardcore hater, that J-core is just one of those highly, highly subjective cultural entities!
![The Futility of Arcaea's Worldbuilding [or, "How I Found Value In Rhythm Game Stories"]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5SygLt_bVQ4/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Futility of Arcaea's Worldbuilding [or, "How I Found Value In Rhythm Game Stories"]](/img/tr.png)
Quick editor's note! I mentioned that I'd link to the email interviews I had in the video separately in the description, but I haven't found a good way of doing that yet - will update the description and this comment once I find a method of linking to them in due course!
I think it's really neat to sit through a very diligently scripted, fully serious essay like this about a specialized topic, especially if it's one I don't really know a lot about.
One might imagine that some essayists go for a sort of universalist approach where they try to tie things all together and put on airs of their topic having some special takeway or philosophical life lesson that lends a greater significance or deeper meaning to whatever it is they're essaying about, but here it's just a look at a particularly pivotal historical period of J-Core, without trying to overreach on meaning or interest, and that confidence in the material engrossed me in the topic at hand, without having to resort to some title like The Best JAPANESE Music Genre You've NEVER Heard Of with a thumbnail caption of "How Did This Happen?" and an arrow pointing to a guy's head circled in red. So it was a good time. I'm not an expert or anything so I can only give dumbfounded hatchling remarks like that, but it was pretty easy to follow along thanks to the full closed captions and choice background footage.
see i was going to say the old live show footage actually looks pretty good for the time period compared to eg. arcade footage of GGXXAC but then the clip at 50:50 played and i started laughing
those individual pixel blocks were moving like madoka witches
feeling smart as hell for listening to some guy called novalaxia's j-core recommendations months ahead of this video when i manage to recognize the cover of hardcore syndrome 2
Good job on being the first one on gathering this much information about the J-Core of old. It's difficult on getting accurate information from the J-Core history, but with the limited sources you did a pretty good job. There are some gaps and misconceptions on some parts (talking as someone that was there with the word J-Core on day one), but the majority is solid and legit.
My community and I enjoyed the video while watching during my livestream, so thank you for being the first westerner that collected this much information into one video!
I appreciate the feedback on this! I will confess that there were some sections that would have absolutely benefitted from some more considerable digging, but I was unfortunately struggling to find leads that I was confident were still around by this point (I was honestly quite surprised Plasmadancer's email still worked!)
thank you for watching! hopefully it wasn't too much of a chore clearing up things I got wrong, haha
Fantastic work - I really wasn't thinking the project would be in video form, but this is extremely well put together. Even if I'm biased, it's great to see freeform getting a bigger than expected mention. Congrats on the final piece (for now?), and I enjoyed dusting off some memories to contribute!
You did an amazing job with this video!!! I've been into this scene for just over four years now, and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with having to dig around for information on older releases and such. So, it really makes me really happy that you created a video covering this.
I hope you can explore even earlier aspects of the hardcore scene in the future, like Hyper Rich or サイケアウツ, just to name a few. Those areas have been pretty undocumented unless you dig really deep.
As someone who's been into J-Core for a long time, I still feel like I've only touched the surface of the scene. Really wonderful job on the analysis. It was very informative ^^ Also really appreciate you going all the way to do interviews too! Will be looking forward to seeing it.
Amazing video essay on J-Core. Did not expect to see a video essay being made on J-Core to be honest and very well researched.
There's a couple things that people like Neodash, SpeedBeatz and myself could have offered different perspectives or insights on, and it might have helped the overall essay on clearing up some minor details. For example, there was information of Double Dutch available way before 2015 that me and others dug up at the time. The original 128 kbps quality rip that was available online was as early as 2005 if I remember correctly, and the discovery of Double Dutch information like the Yonderdome infosheet was scanned in by me around 2010 haha. We had a good grasp on the information pretty early of releases like Double Dutch and other more obscure releases by other labels from talking with the artists themselves. But this kind of information is not widely known. Especially since proper, more permanent forms of documentation weren't really a thing until later and it was mostly just stored in the collective minds (and hard drives) of the people in the scenes. We did often cite sources in places like Discogs release history pages.
You mentioned there's not a lot of information on the J-Core scene, but I'm here to tell you that there definitely is a lot to be found. While it is a fleeting and underground scene, there's many of us working to document this awesome scene, both on Discogs as well as other sources, like the j-core-adjacent Ian's Nerdcore Encyclopedia or obscure corners of the Internet Archive. But you have to know where to look or who to ask haha. I really appreciate you compiling all of this into a well-produced essay like this.
Also, it seems like you've fallen victim to the prank of some troll when showcasing the Double Dutch tracks haha. These were seemingly intentionally compressed multiple times over and transcoded to flac in order to troll a notorious online beggar who harassed people online. I don't know who did it, but the 128 kbps rip sounds much clearer in comparison.
thank you for this in-depth comment on things! I definitely would have liked to have reached out for comment from figures like yourself and Neodash, but I admittedly didn't know how to get in contact knowing how a lot of websites are pretty bad for that exact purpose these days, and I wager RUclips comments might not have been the easiest way of starting a correspondence, haha
I did often use the Internet Archive for a few pieces of info here and there, but the timing was... unfortunate, considering what happened prior to this video going live! I nonetheless appreciate such an in-depth clarification on many things, it's great to have someone able to highlight these details!
woah! awesome video. need more coverage of this type of stuff by people like you who care so deeply!!!
As a relative outsider to more hardcore music scenes and circles I thought this video was genuinely so informative and fun! It's given me a lot to listen to too.
happy to hear you found it informative! many find this area of hardcore a bit overwhelming to dive into, but there's definitely something there for everyone if you have any specific tastes ^^
Hope it sold you on Betwixt!!
18:46 Well! Thank you for covering my favorite part of the scene! (And interviewing the one with the best English!) Personally I feel it's an exaggeration to say freeform influenced J-Core as a whole, especially with Codex alienating so many fans before episode 5. Then again, I never specifically compared it to other influences. Tano*C's pre-2015 releases are still amazing to me, especially the early ones, so I'll definitely come back to this!
if you do another video like this, it would be cool if you talked about the nerdcore techno as a whole, its really rich due to its diversity and there are labels that are really rare!!!
Really enjoyed the vid! I especially liked the analysis on Double Dutch, it's an album I haven't listened to before and I liked reading your comments on the individual songs!
happy to hear you enjoyed the analysis - I was debating whether my approach was a bit too casual, but it seems to have worked out in the end!
o7 B&B, you are sorely missed.
I’ve only gotten into J-Core somewhat recently (sometime in the past 2 years) and this is really cool. Thanks for posting this
I started hear J-Core 2008 and the source for this music was the forum worldofhentai :3
Nice. 4chan in 2012 for me.
great video :D
I don't really like hardcore music. That, I've known; but after sitting my ass down to this video, I finally have an explanation why.
Hardcore and J-core can be loud, jarring, repetitive, and alyrical. At times, it's more noise than signal, occasionally sound with barebone substance. Once in a while a verse or even an entire song will appeal to me, but then I'll experience a long stretch of hardcore tracks I don't like for reasons I would expect other people to agree with. But I try my best not to take this to mean that hardcore per se is boring or uninspired.
Rather, listening to samples of HARDCORE TANO*C and Double Dutch that I didn't like, all while digesting your historical narrative of the genre, its evolution, and its artists-real, living, breathing humans with eyes, ears, brains, only a taste in music I couldn't comprehend-I think I finally kind of got it.
These genres of music have historically never catered to the standard tenets of musical taste.
Whatever the intent was of these DJs who sat down and created these songs, the end results are songs that clearly operate for a different reason than appealing to as many people as possible, unlike other music of that and even the current time period. Hardcore songs don't really feel like they're trying to invoke emotion or tell a story. They feel like they were created purely to create music in relation to an existing field, like an experiment, or a drill meant to deepen a niche. From what I got in this video, it took J-core artists a long time to even consider bringing in wider cultural influences like otaku or international cultures.
So yeah! Good work conveying to me, world-renowned #1 hardcore hater, that J-core is just one of those highly, highly subjective cultural entities!
AMAZING VIDEO
im big fan of hardcore made in japan
you the goat for this
first